Practicing Domesticity: Little Red Tea Dress

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Little Red Tea Dress

This is the story of Little Red Tea Dress and her adventures in the land of Geneva.

One day Little Red Tea Dress decided to visit her dear Granny at her home in Geneva. Dear Granny's house was far, but not too far, so Little Red decided to walk (also, there was very limited parking and she didn't want to get a ticket for not having a permit).

When she arrived, dear Granny was sleeping on the couch with her paper and pen on top of her. She had been writing an editorial for the local underground liberal paper (Arminianist - shh!) and had fallen asleep before she finished. So, Little Red decided to put her stuff down and just make herself at home.

Walking closer she noticed la lupa piccola. Perched on the top of the couch, the little one was fast asleep in the sun.

Oh good, I'll make us some tea for when Granny wakes up, and then I can tell her all about John and the ways one can love a Calvinist (see Kat for more on that one...), Little Red thought to herself.

Placing her basket on the table, she set to work in the kitchen boiling water and getting out biscuits. Realizing she had left the all-natural brie she'd purchased from Trader Joe's in her basket, she returned to the table to get it.

But when she got there, the basket was empty! Thinking Granny had eaten everything in it, she turned to yell at her - "Che cretino! I can't believe you ate everything!"

Having just woken up, Granny was quite confused and also quite offended at being yelled at (well, she couldn't actually hear that it was yelling - hard of hearing, you understand - but from the looks on Little Red's face, she knew it wasn't good) - "I ate everything? I haven't moved! But look at what you've done with your yelling, now you've woken me and the precious one. If you're feeling that ungrateful, you can just leave."

Annoyed, Little Red stomped out the door. Irritated, Granny returned to writing her article with a vengeance. Satisfied, and even a little full, the wolf went back to napping in the sun.

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What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Source: Sleeping Preacher (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Alone

by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

The Silence

by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Little Red Tea Dress

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